New Club Grades

[Faith]

Is pre novice, novice a different route or is it alongside grades? So if you have a gymnast who has passed grade 13 say could they compete as a pre-novice/novice?

And this is where BG needs to streamline things

SO- briefly, if I can!

Levels- you know about. For potential elites, from age 8.
Grades, you know about, for the rest of us humans.

Those are nationally set across the UK (except level 5, just to confuse things. Which is set by the local regional committee)

Then the regional committees decide their own regional competition system, and call it what they will. Some are novice, intermediate, advanced, or club or regional level, others are streamlining so their novice is now called Level 5, intermediate level 4, advanced level 3…some regions have lower levels through 6 and 7.

Even if they're called "level x" they are not parallel or comparable to compulsory levels, and you can't switch between the two streams. Some regions have pass marks to move up (which can be so high only one or two obtain the pass mark each year), others don't.

Rules are set by region. So novice in Devon might be backward rolls and cartwheels, but Level 5 (novice equivalent) in London will be BHS on beam and giants for a bonus.

There also tends to be IA and OOA. which again are two different animals Your Level 4 IA gymnasts often tend to have much higher skills than level 4 OOA. Some regions also use their autumn comp to combine with elite voluntaries, so IA and OOA will be two different competitions, with compulsory kids doing the IA- and the OOA for the rest later.

Oh yes- and this runs outside of the grade system so you can do both

 

[Kit Kat]

Is pre novice, novice a different route or is it alongside grades? So if you have a gymnast who has passed grade 13 say could they compete as a pre-novice/novice?

@Rapunzel it's not a different route it's just a level they compete at 4 piece comps in autumn it they can do pre novice ages 8, 9, 10, 11 plus, then novice ages 9, 10, 11 , 12 plus, then regional level 4 junior, regional level 4 senior, modified fig Espoir not sure after that. The elite girls do level 5, 4, 3, fig Espoir and so on.

The best girls at prenovice 8 last autumn competed skills such as walk overs on beam, BLO and somi s on floor, FHS vaults, upstarts on bars. And then went onto compete grade 13 this year. I didn't mind my dd doing grade 13 I just don't see how it's an efficient use of time for the girls at the gym doing two different sets of routines at two different levels as routines take polishing and that takes so much time. But at least she's happy and progressing so is I can't moan too much

 

[Flossyduck]

I'd be interested to know if there's are-take this year too. I know that in the past you could always do a compulsory re-take at the voluntaries and your score was based on the compulsory requirements and not judged for the voluntary comp.

This year I heard that they were not going to do re-takes because you ca now do ooa. One of the mums whose dd had an injury and was likely to miss the compulsory was going bananas about it because her dd might be classed as ooa rather than re-taking in September. I have to stress that was only a bunch of parents and not anything official or from a coach, so may not be correct even in its rumour state.

It would be interesting if they did take that approach though. It would definitely cement the ooa as a credible alternative if it were the case that it mopped up all the girls who don't make one set of compulsories - whether injured or needing a bit more time. It would also reduce pressure on girls to come back after injury too soon if it was still considered credible.

Somehow I think they will bow to pressure and let them re-take though and I have some sympathy with that if a girl was all ready but ill or injured.

 

[Jenny]

Agree you wouldn't want an ill timed bout of flu to drop a kid out of national squad because they couldn't catch back up to in age. I think they will need a retake option in the autumn for that reason.

 

[Frase]

Traditionally could you only take the re-take option if you had attempted no grade in the spring?

 

[floppycat]

You don't need to pass grade 5 or 4 to do the next level only need to pass grade 3 we've been told.

 

[Flossyduck]

Yeah, you've never needed to pass level 5 or 4. The first one you need to pass to progress is level 3.

I'm pretty sure that previously you could re-take in autumn if you either missed the spring competition or if you failed it. And I think you could re-take just the range as well, if that is what you failed on... obviously that's not the case anymore.

The other big thing I've noticed is that quite a few girls are registering a 0.00 for vault. The new vaults seem to be causing a few problems and that surprises me, as I think it's the one thing which has got easier in some ways. Although I'm not the one doing it, so don't shoot me down on that! I think maybe it has more to do with the fact that you only get one go now, not best of two as before. If you land on your bum, you don't get another chance.

 

[Jenny]

Traditionally could you only take the re-take option if you had attempted no grade in the spring?

That may have varied by region. You could retake range I know and if you failed that you could retake the whole thing.

 

[Jenny]

Yeah, you've never needed to pass level 5 or 4. The first one you need to pass to progress is level 3.

I'm pretty sure that previously you could re-take in autumn if you either missed the spring competition or if you failed it. And I think you could re-take just the range as well, if that is what you failed on... obviously that's not the case anymore.

The other big thing I've noticed is that quite a few girls are registering a 0.00 for vault. The new vaults seem to be causing a few problems and that surprises me, as I think it's the one thing which has got easier in some ways. Although I'm not the one doing it, so don't shoot me down on that! I think maybe it has more to do with the fact that you only get one go now, not best of two as before. If you land on your bum, you don't get another chance.

Oh that is interesting about vault. It is just very different and will take time to get used to. I have noticed a few 0 on bars.